Social media is often a large part of a financial institution’s marketing strategy, but to truly take advantage of all it has to offer, companies must have safeguards in place to decrease regulatory findings when audits occur. From state-by-state licensing to record retention requirements, social media compliance can be daunting for institutions of all sizes – but for Nessa Morris, Social Media Compliance Team Lead at CMG Mortgage, Inc. DBA CMG Home Loans (CMG), the burden of monitoring their brand’s social media presence has been eased with ActiveComply.
Upgrading the Tech Stack
Today, there are several providers that claim to grant peace of mind when it comes to social media compliance, but are all teams and technologies created equal? Nessa Morris doesn’t think so. Using other providers in the past has demonstrated that functionality can vary greatly and can prove costly.
“ActiveComply allows us to see and manage hot-button issues before they get out of control. As soon as something occurs, the trigger terms have already pulled it in and there’s no further action needed from our end, allowing us to focus more of our time on the issue at hand,” says Morris. “Our previous process and provider would never have caught these issues in real-time.”
With ActiveComply’s extensive trigger term and watchlist word list, CMG can capture loan officer advertising on social media posts with ease. “The customized trigger terms help us prioritize what exactly we want to be looking for at CMG.” says Morris. Built-in automation helps lenders isolate specific words and phrases into specific folders for team member review to foster collaboration.
Social Media Monitoring & LicenseLink
ActiveComply’s social media monitoring tool has given CMG the power to discover new social media accounts and quickly diagnose profile checkup issues needing corrective action. With Contact Cards, users can focus on one license at a time. “ActiveComply has streamlined a lot for us. It takes the worry out of making sure that we have all our employees integrated and on the same page.” Through the Contact Card feature, CMG ensures uniformity in compliance across all the social media channels from ActiveComply’s unified, cloud-based platform.
ActiveComply’s social media monitoring platform isn’t the only ActiveComply tool in CMG’s toolbelt. It can be difficult to meet state compliance requirements on social media profiles with only 100-160 characters of bio space. Nessa and other CMG staff make use of ActiveComply’s LicenseLink product to tackle limited-bio social media.
“We fell in love with LicenseLink, it’s been a game changer for us.”
Through the data set that ActiveComply receives from NMLS Consumer Access, ActiveComply’s LicenseLink product creates digital business cards for each licensed employee that reflect all their state-by-state licensing, branch information, and more. With automatic licensing updates, lenders can rest easy knowing their social media is consistently compliant.
Team Names & State-by-State Regulations
Armed with CMG’s licensing numbers and brand information, ActiveComply’s automated discovery system notifies Morris and her team when connected NMLS IDs, Team Names, or DBAs show up on any social media profile. “We appreciate having ActiveComply for additional compliance insight on challenging subjects like team names and comarketing.” says Paula Leber, VP of Compliance & Licensing of CMG. ActiveComply's system even identifies and alerts their team when incorrect titles and unauthorized Team/Trade Names or DBAs are in use.
If keeping track of employees from different branches and teams without this automation wasn’t difficult enough, there’s also the matter of keeping track of the ever-shifting state-by-state regulatory guidance. As licensing changes for employees, so too do their state-by-state compliance flags in the social media monitoring system. ActiveComply compliance staff provides insight on state-by-state compliance during the onboarding process and creates custom profile checkup flags based on how financial institutions uniquely satisfy requirements.
"ActiveComply is not only a great product,” says Leber. “But also, a great partner in providing us guidance and advice to assist us with our social media policy and issues we’ve uncovered.”
Brand Reputation Risks in Check
Regulatory compliance is always top of mind for those in a regulated industry, but brand reputation issues are also a big concern for companies who utilize social media for business purposes as Nessa relayed: “Given the nature of social media, our biggest concern is keeping a consistent brand message out there, making sure our reputation is not at risk and staying ahead of non-compliant trends that can go viral.”
Every day, the trending content on social media builds and evolves at a rapid rate, which can prove difficult for an institution to monitor without some form of automation in place. “ActiveComply has given us a better understanding of how our originators are communicating and interacting with people on social media,” says Morris. “It’s far easier to know which trends can become an issue.”
Support You Can Count On
The goal of any company looking at fintech providers is that the product improves the overall process – creating efficiencies, saving money, and correcting liabilities in quick order. What is less discussed is how pivotal a provider’s customer support is for an institution’s adoption and overall success rate.
“Whenever additional help is required, the platform has help directly integrated into it,” says Morris. “If you happen to come up against any compliance complications, it’s easy to get a meeting set up with an ActiveComply team member to answer your questions.”
ActiveComply’s inbound chat function provides both technical support on social media platform updates and key compliance information on emerging regulatory updates. With both in hand, CMG can steadily rely on ActiveComply to help diagnose and rectify all social media concerns.